Reay Jespersen

I find myself in a new, and pleasant, headspace this morning.

While I continue to bat a thousand on the 100 words a day challenge, I confess that I generally still have to make myself do the words, or at least remember to do them, and the nighttime alarm on my watch - set to go off as a reminder to do my words if I hadn’t done them previously from one day to the next - has saved my bacon an embarrassing number of times. Point being, the daily writing isn’t yet a habit, which is frankly a bit disappointing.

There are causes for it not being a daily routine, of course. Some of which are genuine reasons, but some of which, were I to take a bit of time and consider them at all seriously, are more likely excuses. There’s all too often stuff I’d rather be doing with my time, and when it comes to free time, I find writing is one of many things that appeal. A lot of that time, the other things win out.

What I’m rather happy about, however, is that this morning I find myself in a new headspace about writing. Not that I felt (at least, often) that daily writing was a chore, but it was all too rare that I was actively looking forward to doing it. Today, I find that’s rather drastically changed. Even though I’m in the midst of a page 1 re-write on what will work out to be a kids’ novel - perhaps a couple of dozen pages in on the first crack at it, I didn’t like the way it was developing, and figured starting from scratch would be a better approach than patching up what I’d done - there’s something now new and appealing about it. Perhaps it’s the result of the re-write itself; being happier with the way it’s working out. But it feels like it’s more than that… as though I want to write (vs. the all-too often desire to complete writing projects; a notable difference).

Hopefully it’s a new, and long-lasting, outlook talking, and is inspired by the work I’ve set ahead of myself instead of by the Excedrin I took an hour ago for the headache I woke up with. Should know by tomorrow. Hell, should know within a few hours, after the Excedrin has run its course and if I still have the itch - which I haven’t had in far too long, and have dearly missed - to get back to writing.

Here’s hoping it’s the latter.